The government on Monday unveiled the country’s first counter-terrorism policy, ‘Prahaar’, outlining a multi-layered strategy anchored in “zero tolerance”, intelligence-led prevention and the disruption of extremist violence. The policy aims to deny terrorists, their financiers and supporters access to funds, weapons and safe havens.The policy, unveiled by the Home Ministry, is structured around seven key pillars to counter terror threats emanating from within India or abroad — prevention of terror attacks to protect Indian citizens and interests; responses, which are swift and proportionate to the threat posed; aggregating internal capacities for achieving synergy in a whole-of-government approach; human rights and ‘Rule of Law’ based processes for mitigation of threats; attenuating the conditions enabling terrorism, including radicalisation; aligning and shaping the international efforts to counter terrorism; and recovery and resilience through a whole-of-society approach.Under PRAHAAR, the government has proposed greater investment in technology and partnerships with private enterprises to mitigate emerging and future terror threats.India has reaffirmed its commitment to pursuing a robust counter-terror strategy and working with the global community to curb the misuse of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for terrorist activities.According to official sources, coordinated multi-agency action has significantly strengthened India’s capacity to prevent and investigate terror attacks. However, it has been stressed that intelligence-sharing and operational coordination must be further enhanced to address evolving threats.The government has emphasised the need to periodically update the domestic counter-terror legal regime to respond to emerging challenges.Continuous capacity-building of Counter-Terrorism Units and Anti-Terrorism Squads (ATSs) in states and Union Territories has been identified as a priority, with a focus on uniformity in structure, training, resources and investigative procedures.The policy also underscores the importance of involving legal experts at every stage of terror investigations — from registration of FIRs to prosecution — to ensure stronger cases and improved conviction rates.Noting that terrorist groups based outside India increasingly rely on local networks for logistics and support, official sources said national efforts must be backed by robust regional and international cooperation to counter transnational terrorism.